THE TEXT

Under the title “Re-Present the History of Global Civilization with Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as the Coordinate Center”, I am going to share with you some of my experiences in writing the book The Gene of Human Civilization. First I will introduce the methodology I adopted in studying how the Taiji Diagram has spread over the globe, that is, the perspective we need in viewing the world in this era of globalization. Then I will go on to talk about what perspective we need in viewing history, or how to change some narrow concepts about the understanding of it.

First, in studying global civilization, we need to go beyond the limit of academic disciplinary divisions, that of ethnicity, and of national boundaries.

In modern times, disciplinary divisions in academic fields are becoming ever more meticulous to such a degree that in fields like economics, political science and basic medicine theories are getting ever more remotely divorced from reality.

  During the research, I came into contact with experts in various fields, not only Chinese and Ukrainian, but also scholars from many other countries, even shamans from ethnic minority regions, who might have never stepped out of their mountainous areas in their whole life but have preserved precious knowledge for mankind. In Bijie prefecture of China’s Guizhou province I also visited local elders with the title “布摩”, who specialized in reading scriptures.

  Then, we also need to look beyond one’s own ethnic group. For instance, China’s archeology has been mostly focused on the Han region while neglecting ethnic minority border areas. As a matter of fact, southern China has been culturally related with the whole south Pacific ocean, whereas northern China along the Great Wall has been quite close in culture to Europe, including Ukraine, as, for example, we noticed while in Ukraine that Chinese and Ukrainian horse gears have been quite similar to each other for the past thousands of years.

  Besides, national boundaries should neither limit our vision when we study the civilization on Earth. While the Taiji Diagram symbolizes Eastern culture, such as those in China and South Korea, it also exists in ancient Europe, often on goddess images, although there have been few Chinese studies of its foreign versions and perhaps not many Ukrainian scholars are aware of Chinese data on this Diagram, some of whom even call decorative Taiji diagrams as “noodles”.

   The inadequacy of communications between different cultures is regrettable in this era of globalization. Scholars in ethnic Han region think of the Taiji diagram as “Double Fish” representing Yin and Yang, while in its vicinity such as northern Shaanxi province and ethnic Yi area in southwest China, people have memories of Taiji in snake images. Ms. N. B. Burdo of the Institute of Archeology of Ukrainian Academy of Science has made a detailed study of how coiled snakes evolved into Taiji diagrams. Therefore, if we broaden our vision, we will see a totally different world.

  In a nutshell, crossing over disciplinary divisions, ethnic lines and national boundaries is very important to the mutual understanding not only between China’s multiple nationalities but also between peoples of the whole world.

  At present, books on world history were mostly written by Western Europeans or Americans. They may also mention Chinese, Ukrainian, or even Southern Pacific culture, but they can hardly free themselves from the restrictions of their narrow European perspective and, thus, lack a global vision.

  The concept of “globalization” has been in vogue in the past 30 years. Europeans take Columbus’s voyage to America in the 15^th century as the beginning of globalization. But actually Europe was not quite capable of sea navigation before that century. It was China who was outstandingly developed in maritime culture -- At least three or four millennia ago, she started seafaring and opened up the South Pacific region. I hope we Chinese will see the world with our own eyes some day. We need a brand-new global perspective in viewing the world history. What kind of perspective is it, then?

   First of all, mankind’s major cultural achievements since late Palaeolithic age have been made collectively by different ethnic groups on various continents, resulting from their migration, communication, integration and continued innovation.

 For instance, scholars of Chinese culture generally believe that it has been created by Chinese, especially by the Hans. But it so happened that a jar decorated with a tiger head image was once unearthed from a site of ancient Yangshao culture while such jars are also found to be used currently in the ethnic Yi region, where it is called “tunkou” (吞口). Obviously, Yangshao culture must be related with Yi people in a way, not exclusively with the Hans.

   Chinese culture was not cultivated by Chinese in isolation. Nor was Ukrainian culture by Ukrainians alone. Such was also the case with European civilization: Without the influx of Islamic culture, modern Western science would not have emerged.

   There is no civilization on earth that can stay closed and isolated from other civilizations. Chinese civilization contains cultural fruits from other parts of the world -- What is called “the three-dynasty (Xia-Shang-Zhou) civilization” was the result of a large-scale encounter between the East and the West around four millennia ago. Many of the things we have been accustomed to came from the west part of Eurasia, such as wheat (raw material for steamed buns), Bronze workmanship, and horse-drawn chariot (A state  that owned a thousand such chariots would distinguish itself as a major power in the Warring States period). Without that encounter, the brilliant three-dynasty civilization would not have been as it was.

   The latest large-scale encounter between civilizations happened in Western Europe. Before the 14^th century, Europe was backward. The Renaissance was the result of encounter between Chinese, Islamic and European cultures, with Islamic medicine, China’s Four Great Inventions, and many such other factors as its catalysts.

   Therefore, the global system of civilizations has not developed in isolation from each other. Now that the Chinese government is promoting cultural self-confidence, there have appeared some narrow-minded ideas such as “China’s Hunan Province is the birthplace of world culture” and “The history of Europe is a fake”. Holders of such ideas are ignorant of the fact that the greatness of Chinese culture lies in none other than its creativeness based on non-exclusive assimilation from other cultures. Four thousand years ago, it was after learning from the West its bronze workmanship that Chinese ancestors were able to bring into play their “late-development advantage” and successfully create the bronze culture that outshone all others at that time.

   Secondly, Like all living things, global civilization is an integrated whole with close relations between its parts. Such relations are not one-dimensional, nor net-like, but spreading out from China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau as the coordinate center. 

   In the past thousands of years, all different ethnic groups have formed their world view with themselves as the center. Europeans first designated Egypt as the East, later described Persia as the East, followed by Turkey, and then called China and India as Oriental, disregarding the fact that India and Europe belong to the same Indo-European linguistic family. Their line of demarcation between Western and Eastern cultures is not clear. The real distinguishing line between different civilizations must be a region with a space broad enough to effectively separate the human population into differentiating cultural zones. In studying the Tai Diagram, I came to notice that different civilizations on earth are located in different directions radiating from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

   I hope we Chinese will free ourselves from the limit of the Western perspective and learn to view the world from the standpoint in the outer space high above us. Then we will see that it is none other than the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the Earth’s third pole, that is the dividing point between different human civilizations.

   Thirdly and lastly, different ethnic cultures are results of adaptation to different environments, not to be distinguished between advanced and backward or superior and inferior ones. There are only differences in relative richness in accumulation of cultural factors and degree of sophistication in their development.

   Long since, some racial groups have touted their civilization as the most advanced. But anthropologists have found that primitive people might not necessarily live a less happy life than modern people. In his Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins calls theirs “the original affluent society”, because those people worked shorter hours for sustenance and, hence, had more time for recreational and social activities than their modern counterparts, though we should not go to the other extreme by over-idealizing the primitive society.

   Modern humans have always thought of themselves as the most smart, but we have noticed that the spiritual part of human beings must have been weakening, as in contrast about half of the men in some primitive groups are capable of extrasensory perception. It was also the result of their cultural adaptation to the lack of scientific and technological know-how in primitive times -- they had to depend more on their spiritual senses.

   It is very important to understand the history of world civilizations. Only by firmly leaning against the past will we be able to confront the future with courage. This is the motivation behind my resolve to study how the Taiji Diagram had spread over the globe. I’ll finish my speech by what I met with during this study tour. Mr. Mukola Bandrivski, director of Lvov Museum of Religion and Anthropology, Ukraine, had discovered a three-thousand-year old tomb, in which a woman lying on her side closely next to a man lying on his back. What a scene of a love story in a time capsule! Mr. Bandrivski told us that this is the only one tomb of its kind on Earth. But when we showed him photos of such tombs unearthed in northwestern China, he was so astonished.

   How urgently we need to broad our vision today. We hope the next generation will no longer view the world with other people’s eyes like us have done, especially not with European colonialists’ eyes. When you tour through the mountains and rivers all over the earth, looking again into the global mosaic of diverse ethnic cultures with a heart full of brotherly feelings, you will find a totally different world and that will be a new start of mankind’s future...